STOCKTON - Soon, most individuals booked into jail - maybe all - will have to pass a background check of sorts prior to being released before trial.

Most pretrial releases are based only on the charge being faced, not on the suspect's criminal history or his or her risk to commit another crime or skip court.

But criminal history and other background will be a key part in the new pretrial services program, which may be up and running early next year, San Joaquin County Chief Probation Officer Stephanie James said.

"The thing that is important for the public to know is that it's just being smarter about how we're doing business," James said. "We're actually using a validated tool that actually predicts their likelihood to appear in court and their likelihood to commit a crime while they're going through the court process."

Officials began to re-examine the jail release process after a recent state law - AB109 - added hundreds more inmates to the jail's daily tally.

County supervisors relinquished $80 million in state funds that were available to help expand the overcrowded jail because the county lacked the extra money needed to operate the expansion.

With expansion off the table, the focus has shifted to reforming the way the jail population is managed.

"It's critical that we start making better decisions using some evidence that really looks at the risk of the offenders," James said. "So, the support has been pretty much unwavering."

James has been moving forward with the goal of implementing the new system in January.

Probation will take into account an offender's employment status, family and living situation, and drug abuse history in addition to criminal past.

James is working with a contractor on developing software that will integrate probation and jail records with other risk factors into a scoring system. The system will estimate an offender's level of risk.

Higher-scoring inmates would not be released pretrial, while lower-scoring individuals might be released under supervision measures, such as GPS tracking systems or follow-up visits and phone calls.

It's still unclear whether pretrial assessment will relieve jail overcrowding, but many of those involved in changing the process are hopeful it will have an impact.

"The vast majority of crime is not violent," said public defender Peter Fox, who is part of a committee that helps steer the county in the development of AB109 programs.

Jurisdictions with pretrial assessment programs have shown a decrease in jail population, he said. Kentucky, for example, increased its releases to 66 percent since 2011 using pretrial assessment, compared with 51 percent in prior years, Fox said.

"It remains to be seen whether it will have a dramatic effect (in San Joaquin County,)" he said. Currently, only 20 percent of jail inmates are screened by probation staff for pretrial release.

When the jail is full, even after those releases, the Superior Court releases more inmates so the jail can meet a court cap on population. The population is capped at 1,411, said Superior Court Judge Richard Guiliani, who manages the cap.

These releases are done based on current charge with technical parole and probation violations usually being the first to go.

However, an offender who is released on a low-level crime could have violent priors.

For that reason, officials are rethinking pretrial release.

AB109 has provided funding to add staffing for the program. The county also has been provided with technical assistance from the National Institute of Corrections.

James said the long-term goal is to eliminate the court cap.

Officials won't know if that's feasible until more studies are conducted, starting with a pilot run of pretrial assessments.

Guiliani wasn't comfortable commenting specifically on the program, which is still under development. But, he said, generally, it's certainly worth looking into changing the system.

"I think that whenever you can become more efficient, you really need to try and look at these things," he said. He does, however, remain skeptical it will solve the overcrowding problem.

The newly convicted felony offenders coming to jail through AB109, he said, have exacerbated the need for more jail beds.

"I don't know how we can avoid that," Guiliani said.

The jail is operated by the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office, which responded via email to a request for comment that the proposed pretrial assessment has not been finalized nor implemented yet.

The email went on to say that the Sheriff's Office does not know what the impact will be on the jail.